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Exclusive: The Creator of the Fail Whale Roots for Team Coco at the #ShortyArtShow

On Wednesday night, New Yorker Twitter-ers got to meet a Twitter superstar: Yiying Lu, the creator of the infamous Twitter “Fail Whale”. She was at the #ShortyArtShow showing some of her cute, spunky art and the campaign image she made for Conan O’Brien’s efforts to get a Shorty Award. Check out some exclusive photos of the night below.

The Shorty Awards, an annual event celebrating the best in 140-character content production, hosted @YiyingLu at the #ShortyArtShow on Wednesday night to celebrate all things Twitter. Yiying is perhaps best known for creating the Fail Whale that us Twitter users see every time Twitter is down – a dubious honor no doubt, but we’re glad we get to see a cute whale rather than a bland “Cannot load Tweets” page!

Yiying won a Short Award last year for her creative efforts, and this year she’s putting them to good use: she is helping Conan O’Brien campaign for his own Shorty Award. She created the Pale Whale in honor of O’Brien’s less-than-tanned appearance, an image that he featured on his show a few weeks ago.

The #ShortyArtShow was a huge success, with dozens of people showing up to meet Yiying and chat about Twitter. We’ve got some exclusive pictures from the event below, so here’s a taste of what you missed out on if you couldn’t make it:

The organizers of the event set up, but it’s not all work and no play! They get to sport the Shorty Award badges while they prepare the space.

Yiying shows off her Pale Whale art for Team Coco.

Attendees get their own Pale Whale badges too!

And just a reminder: voting for the Shorty Awards has been extended until Friday, February 11th at midnight EST, so you still have time to vote for your favorite Twitter-er!